Around 1,400 volunteers are helping the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in strengthening family-beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program in the CALABARZON Region.

These volunteers are members of different civil society organizations (CSOs) in the region and have undergone training on the facilitation of the Family Development Sessions (FDS) from the DSWD.

The FDS is a monthly gathering of parent-grantees of the Pantawid Pamilya program and is a venue for teaching various family development topics including responsible parenthood, child’s rights, budget management and disaster preparedness among others.

The volunteers conduct these sessions for the beneficiaries without cash incentives to free some of the work of the DSWD field staff so they can focus on other tasks such as case management or linking the beneficiaries to various programs and services to help improve their living condition.

To date, there are more than 320,000 family-beneficiaries of the program in the region.

“Katulad ng pagtulong sa amin ngayon ng Pantawid Pamilya, gusto naming marami rin kaming matulungan sa paraan na alam namin katulad ng pagseserbisyo at pagtuturo upang mas mapalakas ang mga pamilya,” shared Pastor Victor Gojo Cruz, 41, CSO volunteer FDS facilitator from Majayjay, Laguna Province.

Pastor Gojo Cruz’ family is also a beneficiary of the Pantawid Pamilya program.

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is a human development program of the national government that aims to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty through investing on the health, nutrition and education of children age zero to 18. Family-beneficiaries are provided with monthly cash subsidies in exchange for their compliance to the set conditions of the program including 85% monthly school attendance of children, monthly preventive health checkups and monthly attendance to the FDS.# with reports from MADiaz